Restarants "with rooms"

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Branching from posts by Orik and Bux in the Paris restaurant rec. topic, and taking a totally different approach and perspective from a recent article in one of the food magazines touting the rise of small hotels with good restaurants, I am very interested in collecting a list of destination restaurants that have added a few rooms for overnight guests.  These are not inns, per se, and certainly not hotels, but rather fine dining rooms that have added a few rooms.  I will start with a couple that I know of:

Bistrot d'Eygalieres,  Eygalieres, 13810   04.90.90.60.334

We lunched at this superb dining room in June on Bux's recommendation.  It is located 20 minutes southeast of St. Remy in Provence.  I notice from their website that they have a few beautifully done rooms.  Next time we may well try them.

Le Table des Freres Ibarboure  Bidart, 64210 05.59.54.81.64

This destination restaurant just south of Bayonne on the Atlantic coast has added a few rooms within the last couple of months.  We'll try out both rooms and dining room in March.  Again, an excellent website.

Le Bistrot a Michel  Cabrieres-d'Avignon  04.90.76.82.08  A much simpler dining room than the two above, but with a reputation of excellent regional fare, particularly truffles in season.  We couldn't get book a room here although we started 4 months in advance, and picked another destination for that night.

I would love to hear of other restaurants with rooms that you have tried or know of.  Proximity to a TGV station is a giant plus!

[Bux]

Perhaps my very favorite restaurant with rooms is in Belcastel in the Aveyron. Some years back Le Vieux Pont was highly touted in the GaultMillau guide on a page promoting young restauranteurs of the year. We sought it out, but the hotel mentioned was still under construction and we found rooms in a nearby town, but the next time we were there, we secured a room in the new annex across a small stone bridge from the restaurant. The rooms were bright, simple, but with fine tile bathrooms and a refreshingly complete lack of upholstery and drapes. The food could easily be described in simliar food terms. I just looked it up in the Michelin to check that the Vieux Pont is listed as a restaurant with rooms and not as a hotel. GM lists it as both restaurant and hotel. It's rather subjective when a restaurant with rooms becomes a hotel. The sleeping annex at le Vieux Pont has seven bedrooms, but no public spaces, . For me this may be the distinction. I"m not sure. It's a gem, but not on most people's path. I suppose the nearest train station is in Rodez 27k away. No TGV access.

[Bux]

As I thought about restaurants with rooms and hotels without public spaces, the Moulin de la Gorce in la Roche l'Abeille, near St.-Yrieix-la-Perche south of Limoges came to mind. It's hard to think of a Relais et Châteaux inn as a simple restaurant with rooms, but Michelin shows three crossed forks and spoons in red. I don't recall any public spaces other than the dining room. Bedrooms are in several stone buildings that were once part of a mill. We did have the least expensive room I've ever heard of in a R&C establishment, but aside from a sloped ceiling over the tub which made showers a bit of a problem for some (my wife didn't notice a problem) and barely enough room to walk around the bed, it was an exceptionally charming room. The whole little complex is at one end of a pond with ducks and there were sheep grazing on a hill on the other side of the pond. The food was sensational and it's two stars were well earned. The scenery was breathtaking. This is a rural location. I'm not sure if either la Roche St. Bernard or the supposedly bigger St.-Yrieix-la-Perche really exist as towns.

By the way, did you want to walk from a TGV station or just not have to drive all the way from Paris?

[Margaret Pilgrim]

No, we don't need to walk from a TGV station. ;-)  We would just like to get some distance out from Paris before picking up a car in order to see different parts of the diverse countryside.

[Bux]

My age is showing. I remember when you were in small towns within ten minutes of passing the Periferique. In December we took the TGV south from Lyon just to get to Provence a bit quicker. We picked up our car in Montelimar, but didn't start driving south until we loaded up on nougat. It's hard to make sure you buy enough at the beginning of the trip to have some left for souvenirs at the end.

[chaudfroidoeuf]

There are cheerful rooms with clean lines at Le Moulin de Lourmarin, no more than 1 1/2 hrs from Marseilles in Lourmarin.  The cuisine of Edouard Loubet is appealing -- herbs culled from the fields of Provence; "forgotten" vegetables grown in some cases in his own gardens (yes, if you are wondering, he studied with Veyrat).   The rooms are in an old olive mill, which also houses Loubet's vaulted dining room.  In the summertime, the outside dining area surrounding an old, magestic (olive?) tree and protected in some cases by vines is an alternative.

Another restaurant with rooms is Chez Bruno at Lorgues (3-5 rooms); very roughly about halfway between Nice and Marseilles.  The place specializes in truffles.  Late this summer, I had lunch there with the below menu at 650 FF for Truffes Melanosporum (price would have been a very reasonable 320 FF for summer truffles).

Chou farci aux truffes, braise dans une sauce aux truffes (stuffed cabbage)

La pomme de terre des montagnes cuite en robe des champs aux girolles et creme de truffes (potatoes)

Foie gras avec des pommes vertes et des truffes, sauce aux truffes

Le miel aux truffes (honey)

Tarte tropezienne au leger parfum des iles (only non-truffled dish was dessert)

The previous day, I had had lunch at Terre des Truffes in Nice (close to the opera house), which is also owned by Bruno:

Le foie gras au torchon truffe a 10% a la Truffe Tuber Brumale, sa salade et son pain grille

La Brouillade aux truffes tuber brumale et truffes de saison  (velvety egg dish)

La pomme de terre en robe des champs, a la creme de truffes et truffes de saison (potatoes)

Ravioles de champignons de paris et foie gras, creme de cepes et truffes de saison

La truffe en feuillete au foie gras, poitrine fumme, Tuber Melanosporum (truffe en croute with black truffle)

Moelleux au chocolate, coeur de caramel aux Truffes Tuber Brumale; La tarte aux pommes, caramel de truffes; La creme glacee au caramel de truffes (shared) (chocolate, apple pie and ice cream, respectively, with caramelized truffle sauce).

[robert brown]

I'm delighted you mentioned Les Terres des Truffes. I was in Nice last week for only four days and ate there twice. It's the first place I bring family and friends to. The best is to share dishes, especially if there are four people eating. We make it a point never to return to Bruno's restaurant in Lorgues. His egomanical antics were a major disruptive intrusion on our meal. Thank God he never shows his face in Nice as the limited number of dishes are all rich and delicious. It's the first place I would mention to anyone who wants a recommendation in Nice. And it's quite inexpensive.

[cabrales]

Another appealing restaurant with rooms is Troisgros in Roanne. The facility is easy to access from Lyons, being opposite the salmon pink-colored Roanne train station.   Given the TGV, the facility is also reachable from Paris.  I like the food at the facility.  The rooms are modern, with brown/red/white/orange as some color themes, and priced relatively reasonably. (900 FF bought a wonderful room with a small seating area).  Below is an indicative photo:

http://www.relaischateaux.com/site/us/FicheAdherent?RcCode=troisgros

Common areas at Troisgros were excellent, with a particularly comfortable food library/seating area filled with plush sofas. Food books were available in both French and English.  There is also an attractive room for drinks/cigars.  

Room #38 (significantly more costly) is a duplex, with the second floor being occupied by an enormously long marble shower area.  The front of the shower area was all glass.  

[Bux]

My memory of Troisgros was more of a hotel with a great restaurant than a restaurant with rooms. Certainly a great place to spend at least a night and eat well, but I think not what the original poster had in mind. Many of the great country or small city restaurants of France, if not most, are in inns and hotels. I suppose the distinction between the inn and the restaurant with rooms is blurry at best. A basic difference between the two might well be the number of rooms as well as the absence of common areas such as a public sitting room for overnight guests. The idea is more of a bed and breakfast connected to a great dining room.

Why one would want a restaurant with rooms as opposed to a hotel or inn may be questionable. For some it's just a matter of cosiness and comfort of small scale. For others it's a sense that you are not paying for services and area will not be needed or used. I've arrived at inns just before dinner and checked out the next morning and wondered how much of my room rate covered the cost of maintaining the swiming pool and the luxurious public spaces in which I did not have time to lounge.

On the whole, I'm generally happy when I can sleep on the premises, or walk to the restaurant from a nearby hotel. The idea of getting into a car and driving after a great meal is not conducive to the enjoyment of the meal and certainly puts a crimp in my wine consumption.

[cabrales]

Bux -- Troisgros has many rooms, and, upon my re-review of the initial post for this thread, is probably not the subject on which Margaret solicited input.  Perhaps Loubet's Moulin de Lourmarin would also not qualify, given the large number of rooms, the significant common areas and the non-food services and facilities.

[Bux]

I wondered about that as well, but since the Troisgros hotel was the only one I knew from experience it was the only one I felt qualified to question as I recalled it was a real hotel. The categories are not clearly defined and two of my suggestions may, or may not, qualify. I guess it all depends on why one wants a restaurant with rooms, rather than a hotel with a good restaurant.

[robert brown]

My criterion for determining if an establishment is a hotel with a restaurant or a restaurant (first and foremost) and a hotel secondarily is that if management (invariably an owner-chef) would be pissed off if you took a room and ate elsewhere, then it is the latter. To me, Troisgros and the Moulin de Lourmarin are restaurants first. Their management would be irked if you booked a room and didn't take at least lunch or dinner there. Let's say, however, that you booked a room for two nights at the Moulin and wanted to have one dinner at Les Fenieres, I don't think anyone at the Moulin could or would complain.  In fact, I can remember years ago (and maybe they still encourage it) there was a notice at Les Pres et les Sources d'Eugenie (Michel Guerard) stating that they encouraged you to try other restaurants in the region. I always thought that this was an exceedingly selfless gesture even if it was aimed at the "curistes" who were staying for a week or more. Of course the situation gets blurred the smaller the establishment is or the less well-known the chef. I think, however, that unless you are staying at an Ibis or Bleu Marine-type of hotel, any auberge that tries to have a serious kitchen is one you should eat in if you are spending the night in the same premises.

[Bux]

Robert, I think that's a fair answer to my question as well as a notable distinction between two sorts of places. However, I suspect it would not meet Margaret's original qualifications. Moreover, should one be going to Roanne on business or for some private social function away from the Troisgros' restaurant, their comfortable hotel might still be where one would choose to spend the night. It appears to be the best place in town by far. In my day, I've also had some very mediocre meals in hotels where the owner insisted on knowing if we were going to eat there before giving us a room. I believe that practice is illegal now, and probably was then, but no one was looking. I am of course, playing devil's advocate. I share your feelings to a great extent. I do not like to stay in a small hotel with a restaurant unless I plan to eat at the restaurant, even if it's a lesser known restaurant, if it's under the same management.

[robert brown]

Bux, that's a good point you make with the Roanne example. You also provide a French Tourism Ministry corollary to a regulation that I bet is little known and that causes a lot of unneeded expense and unwanted meals: that it is illegal for a hotel to make a pension or half-pension scheme or arrangement obligatory. I have always meant to find out if the same holds true in other countries, Italy especially. Does anyone out there know?

As for Margaret's opening post, obviously I would not necessarily stay at a destination restaurant with a few rooms (invariably simple) if there were a better hotel nearby. However, I wouldn't do the converse:stay at such a place and not dine there. In the part of France I have gotten to know best, the hedonistic 06 (Alpes-Maritimes) there is a hotel-restaurant called L'Auberge de la Madone, in the perched village of Peillon (one of the "Most Beautiful Villages of Provence", 19 km. north of Nice in the foothills of the Alps. It has 20 rooms averaging a bit over 贄. The food is very good, although much of the time it is limited to just two menus. We take people there often and everyone loves it. Lots of places, Margaret, to "Chiner": Markets in Nice, Villefranche, Antibes, Cannes. etc.

(Edited by robert brown at 10:27 pm on Dec. 28, 2001)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Rather than describe what I was looking for in a “restaurant with rooms”, perhaps I should describe one that we enjoyed in Bath, England in the early ‘80s. The chef was a pioneer in the new English food, at about the same time as Clarke in London.  The place was improbably named “The Hole in the Wall” and because of the young chef’s passion and creativity, quickly became a destination restaurant. Both restaurant and the several rooms upstairs had been meticulously designed, carved out of and installed in a Gerogian building on Charles Street.  Every surface and installation reflected the quality and craftsmanship maintained in the kitchen.  There wasn’t a hint of the glitzy or pretentious.  The bedrooms were light, spacious, very comfortable and beautifully decorated.  There was a stunning breakfast room where breakfasts were prepared to order.  As I remember, the rooms were a bargain at around 贶-175 a night in 2001 $$$.  

In short: 1) a destination dining room; 2) adjacent accommodation so that one could park once, rest and refresh before dinner, enjoy a meal with worry about driving afterward,be able to retreat after dinner to a comfortably equiped room that reflected the quality of the dining experience.  What I would not need or expect would be a concierge, turn-down service, a 24hour desk, room service with the exception of breakfast, fitness club or public spaces. One might well ask, "Why not just go to an inn?  Very simply, because, done right the simpler r-w-r offers a more intimate retreat and a feeling of closer identification with the chef-owner.

I know that many starred dining rooms in the countryside are destination inns as well, but had hoped that within this forum someone might have experience with places that were less well known, insider’s secrets so to speak.  Bux’s recommendation earlier this year of the Bistro d’Eygalieres would have been perfect had it come sooner and had we not already had long standing reservations which caused us to visit at lunch instead of dinner.

[Bux]

We also visited the Bistro d’Eygalieres for lunch with confirmed reservations at a hotel in Nimes that evening. There's not much to do or see in Eygalieres and for professional reasons we could not think of cancelling our night's hotel reservations anyway, but I was very impressed with the photo's of the rooms at the Bistro. For the most part I've not been a fan of French hotel decor and often prefer spartan rooms just for the lack of decor. From what I saw these rooms were very tasteful in a  restrained but anything but spartan manner. Michelin notes "Ravissantes chambres." By the way, the prices quoted, as long as I have my Michelin open, are 750/850 francs.

I am generally not a B&B sort of person, but I agree with the closer identification with the chef/owner. Perhaps in a parallel to the chef making the rounds of the dining room after dinner thread, that identification and closeness would backfire on me if I hated the food. In that case, I'd prefer not to see the chef or his wife at breakfast or when we check out. All this makes me want to spend the night at Eygalieres. The food was good and I recall the chef's wife was very attractive. Of course my wife says I say that about every woman half my age.